Kieran stands at the door and rings the bell. The street is silent because the hour is late. There is a light wind on this cold night and the trees are swaying, casting black silhouettes on the ground against the orange of the streetlamps.

Phillip opens the door. He is smiling. He says to Kieran that it is good to see him and the two of them go into the flat.

Nobody sees them.

Kieran is carrying the photograph of Phillip and Ashley in Fuerteventura. It sits in the inside left pocket of his jacket, and he can feel it there, as though it is burning a hole in his heart. Phillip would no doubt be surprised, and quite alarmed to find that Kieran was carrying the photo. But Kieran does not intend to tell him about it.

Kieran has something in the pocket of his cargo pants, and he keeps that quiet too.

Kieran takes a seat on the sofa in the living room as Phillip goes through to the kitchen to get a couple of Budweiser’s from the fridge. Kieran waits patiently, looking casually around the room, taking in the modern tasteful décor of the living room, with pine floors and soft cream furniture and dimmer lights. He is careful not to touch anything.

He cracks a joke to keep the mood light, and talks about a drunken man he saw on the bus earlier in the evening. They both laugh.

Phillip returns to the living room and hands Kieran the open bottle of beer, then takes a seat on the other sofa. The television is on, and Phillip turns the volume down so they can talk.

They talk awhile about things they’d been up to. They laugh about things they’d done in the past. Phillip tells Kieran that it’s really great that he just called up out of the blue and asked to come over, after nearly a year of not seeing each other.

Kieran nods and smiles. Yes, it really is great.

Phillip tells Kieran that he really must come over sometime soon for lunch or dinner when Ashley wasn’t working at the studio. Then they could meet and it would be great. And maybe Ashley could introduce Kieran to one of her single mates.

Kieran nods and smiles. Yes, it really would be great.

Phillip asks Kieran about his work and Kieran tells him all the little details of what makes his job in the post room so mundane. But at least it pays the bills eh?

This time it is Phillip’s turn to nod.

After half an hour of chatting Kieran offers to get more beer from the fridge. Phillip points him in the vague direction of the kitchen and Kieran finds his way with ease. He collects a tea towel and uses it to open the door of the fridge. He takes out two bottles of Budweiser. Again, using the tea towel, he uses the bottle opener sitting on the worktop to open the beer.

He checks over his shoulder.

He can hear that Phillip has turned the volume up on the television and is laughing along with a comedy programme. Kieran thinks he hears Basil Fawlty yelling at his hotel guests.

Kieran takes one of the Budweiser bottles and tips a third of the beer down the sink. Then he takes a small, trial-size bottle of window cleaning fluid out of the pocket of his cargo pants, and undoes the cap. Working calmly - he is pretty sure that Phillip won’t come in - he fills the Budweiser bottle back up to the top with the window cleaning fluid and wipes away the spills with a cloth from the sink. Then he replaces the cap on the cleaning fluid and put it on the side, touching everything through the tea-towel.

Kieran spills a little of his own beer over the neck of Phillips beer bottle to wash away any residue of the cleaning fluid, and then takes both bottles with him back to the living room. He explains his delay away as taking an interest in the garden. The view from the kitchen looks nice, even in the dark.

Kieran watches Phillip as he drinks his last beer.

~

Phillip lies dead on the couch. He has been vomiting onto the seat next to him. It has taken him twenty minutes to expire.

Kieran unfolds a plastic bag from his back pocket and places three of the four bottles they've used into it. The fourth beer bottle remains in Phillip's dead hand. He wipes the bottle of cleaning fluid and places Phillip's prints on it, before carefully returning it to the kitchen sideboard.

Kieran is careful to wipe off any fingerprints after he touches the front door handle when he leaves.

It is after midnight. In the darkness of the street, Kieran whispers words he does not know when he is awake, and will never recall during daylight hours.

'Qedem 'ahab. I have killed you again Erich Bauer.'

Nobody sees him walk away from the house and down the street, momentarily disappearing under the shadows of the huge trees that line the quiet, suburban street.

THE END